Shady advice from a raging bitch who has no business answering any of these questions.

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On knowing better

I was one of those Jill Stein voters. I hated Hillary. I hated the DNC for their betrayal. I hated that Native American protesters were being brutalized over oil while we all stared at our television screens and laughed at Trump. I hated that the corporate media ignored John Podesta’s back-handed scheming. I was starting to see the Democratic party as the death of populism.

But I’ve been doing some reflecting over the past couple of days. I really wanted to believe that half the country had reasons besides racism to vote for Trump – that the kind of economic pain that establishment politics inflicted on rural Americans would make them choose anyone but a Clinton. I wanted to believe this because I know two Trump voters who are very important to me – my parents.

For twenty-three years, I’ve given my parents the benefit of the doubt. I tried to be understanding when my mother would say “people just want to be with their own kind.” I struggled for words when they told me that Muslims are inherently hateful whereas Christians are inherently loving. I even held my tongue when father told me that slavery wasn’t always bad. In spite of all of this, I really wanted to believe that I was raised my good people. I wasn’t. My parents are white nationalists.

Looking into the abyss that is now our world’s future, I realize I had it all wrong. The real problem isn’t the DNC or the corporate media or the Clintons or even third parties. The real problem is that people like my parents still define our culture. I don’t know what to do with all of my confusion and anger. All I know is that I don’t want to go home for Thanksgiving and I want Hillary back.

Yeah, go fuck yourself.

Before the election, I said that people like you were worse than Trump voters, because you knew better. I meant it then. I mean it now. You knew better, and yet you still threw away your vote on an unqualified, symbolic candidate. Now look what you’ve done.

You are worse than everyone who stayed home on election day. You are worse than the uneducated white men in swing states who tipped the electoral college. You are worse than your parents.

You are the actual worst.

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169 thoughts on “On knowing better”

Betsysays:

Is this fucking Ashley?

But seriously, with so many warnings, so many signs, such a huge fucking historical precedent for this (really, see the ways in which leftists were the handmaidens for the rise of the Nazis in Europe), there are still people who think this bullshit works.

I don’t have to take you for your word, you condescending, smug asshole, I’ve read those history books myself, and I’m educated on European history to the MA level. I’ve also watched the real-life actions of people who call themselves leftists, who were piss-poor students of the theories they cited. I’ve watched leftist men make excuses for rape. I’ve watched leftist whites make excuses for racism.

Perhaps you need to have a more sophisticated understanding of the world – one that allows you to understand that the left includes a lot of people that were neither Luxemburg nor Gramsci, and who were unable to understand the lessons those two figures taught us. One that allows the basic understanding that history books have been read by people who disagree with you.

If you can’t be as brutal a critic of your own beliefs and behaviour as you are of others, you’re not much better than the liberals you claim to hate, and your understanding of society not much more perceptive. And you’ll be useless against fascists, because they’ll exploit every weakness I just pointed out, and more.

The biggest voters for the national-socialist party were lower class german men and women, especially those who served in the war (or had family in the war). They were elected by majority… and by a much more balanced voting system than the one used today in the US, by the way.
It’s called having a populist agenda. That’s what almost got the far right to lead France in the 00’s too, for a more recent example.

I should’ve been clearer – I definitely agree with you. The failure was general, and included both leftists and liberals severely underestimating the threat ahead, sometimes for different reasons (as you say, liberals lacked a populist agenda). Some understood what was happening, but I can’t really make the case that it was neatly divided over the political spectrum.

The left was responsible for the rise of fascism only insofar as the huge groundswell of left wing support had moneyed interests and old aristocrats more terrified by the prospect of a left wing takeover than an openly racist populist regime, and so decided to “make a deal with Hitler. They thought they were buying him. They didn’t know that they’d just given the keys to the country to a madman. They were about to learn that you can’t buy crazy.

Long story short, I don’t really know how leftists in Germany can be blamed for the rise of fascism other than on a systemic level.

The aristocrats and the military actually picked him and got him out of prison to begin with. That’s even worse than just making a deal with him. Little did they know he would bite them in the hand shortly after he rose to power. I say little did they know but they should have known better, really.

Pinning down the “blame” on one element or another implies a level of historical causality I pretty much don’t believe in. The Social Democrats famously decided to betray Luxemburg. The KPD, as it became more closely aligned with the USSR, decided to undermine the Social Democrats because it was – in their words – just another side of the coin of Fascism, the so-called “Social Fascists”.

I really hope that the lesson people take from that is not that those people weren’t really left, or were manipulated by Stalin, whereas I guess we’re the sort of better leftist that can’t be manipulated at all. Because the assumption that we’re all past this and it’s all so much better now didn’t really help us at all this year.

One of the lessons I take from it is that politics, especially radical politics, is a nasty fucking business that really tests your moral compass. Even if we disagree here or you end up killing one of my comrades or whatever I’d still rally behind most of you over a fascist.

When are you going to understand that Hillary was the problem. She was a bad egg, like her corrupt husband. Nobody ever wanted Hillary apart from rights activists who played blind to her political positions just so they could get a woman in power. It reeked of desperation. Given that Clinton for the longest time was against gay marriage and had a disliking of black people(remember the super predator line), its hard to comprehend how she could be seen as a champion of rights. Sanders should have won the nomination, not this corrupt relic of the establishment.

Take a look at a graph of Hillary Clinton’s approval ratings over time, going back 15 years.

Yeah, she’s not inherently unlikable. That’s a dumb narrative. People like her just fine…..when she’s not running for office. She’s not the problem. People who don’t like ambitious women are the problem.

Nonsense. Hillary drips with insincerity and desperation but the real kicker is her dodgy history. I’d bet someone like Michelle Obama would crush Trump in a popularity contest and then guess what? England, Germany and the USA – three of the most powerful nations in the world – would each have a female leader. Not bad going for the gals eh?

The fact is if Hillary Clinton is your champion then there’s something every bit as wrong with you as there is a Trump voter. I just feel sorry for an electorate served two incomprehensively shitty choices. It’s like being asked if you’d rather have a punch in the face from a fist with a knuckle duster or a swift steel toe caped boot in the holiest of holies. Any sane person’s answer would be: “erm, neither sounds particularly appealing … can I have my hair stroked instead?”

You might be right, but to a degree. The question is what degree? So many of the apologists I have heard say things like, “she’s cozy with Wall Street”, not “her voice sounds like someone grating tin cans.” There are superficial reasons and deeper reasons. What Michelle would gain by seemingly not being cozy with bankers, she might lose with racists. It’s all nightmare theory.

Hillary is already defeating Trump in a popularity contest by some of the widest margins ever seen. I don’t know why you think no one wants her. Her approval ratings before this entire election shit show started were very high and plummeted in the last year because Bernie and Trump Media were only too succesful in painting her as untrustworthy establishment. Even though most of Bernie’s and Hilary’s platform is the same. Even though Hilary fought the establishment. She wasn’t any more flawed than other canditates that ran for Presidency and won- Bush got re-elected after leading us into Iraq, and people think the email scandal was the dealbreaker?

I am so sick of smug, thumb-sucking, Sanders-obsessed fuckboys like you. You think you see so much clearer than the rest of us. You don’t. Hillary was our only option against this proto-fascist regime, and if you didn’t shut your mouth and support her, you were part of the problem.

You don’t care for or understand the historical or cultural contexts under which both Hillary’s and Bill’s decisions were made. You fail to grasp the stakes of the election. You don’t have any fucking points to make, let alone reasoning to back them up. I’m so sick of pretending people like you act out of anything but your own narcissism and delusion. Your opinion doesn’t get to matter anymore. We don’t have to cater to your stupidity. Bye.

“Hillary was our only option” – that was the problem. Bernie would have crushed Trump.

I’m not trying to act smarter or more clued up than anyone, sorry if it came across that way. I wasn’t a fan of either candidate and wouldn’t have been happy with either outcome. I will gladly shit on anyone bigging up Trump just as I will shit on anyone bigging up Hillary. Both absolute scum in my view. It’s OK if you disagree.

Well thank God you’ve put your two cents in. I’m sure that means so much to the people legitimately afraid to leave their houses or wear their hijabs.

Why don’t you show up at one of the KKK victory parties and let everyone know about how much you still #feelthebern? Then we’ll all agree that Hillary was a bad choice because she wasn’t the handiest with email and we can put all of these hate crimes behind us!

Now Bernie gets to be that girl they had a crush on but never dated. They don’t need to listen to him fart in his sleep or argue about whose parents to spend Thanksgiving with. He gets to remain perfect in their minds.

Bernie is a socialist (yes, social democrat, but believe me no Americans except those who are already Democrats understand the difference).

Bernie is a Jew.

Bernie is from effete, granola, and ultra-White Vermont by way of sodomite New York City. Two already blue states whose support adds nothing extra to the Electoral College totals.

Bernie was not popular with the Democratic base who do the real legwork of all Democratic campaigns — Blacks, other minorities, unmarried women of all races. And, let’s put a finer point on it: Black women. They are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party (and personally, I wish they led it outright). Their influence and sweat equity multiplies their raw numbers many times over. Lose them and you will lose the election.

Bernie is not even a Democrat. That matters more than you think to the Democratic volunteers who do the actual work of a campaign. And have the experience to know how its done.

Bernie has never been tested by the right-wing hate machine. In fact, Republicans propped him up during the primary and after in hopes of damaging Hillary. But they had a vicious opposition-research file ready to go. And remember, right-wing smears don’t have to be true to work. Most of what’s said against Hillary doesn’t hold up to facts, including the Vardy OP. Remember the Swiftboat ad against John Kerry? Completely false, as reputable news orgs said even at the time. It still worked.

Bernie has very little ground-level organizing skill. He put his name and face on a prescription-drug-cost-containment ballot prop in California (Prop 61). It lost in an 8-point landslide. In liberal California, where Clinton beat Trump 61 to 33%.

Because Bernie lost the Democratic primary by 3 million votes, he couldn’t have won the general among an electorate much LESS sympathetic to his message. Nor against a truly vicious, fact-indifferent right-wing hate machine. This year, the usual right-wing smear tactics were vastly augmented by pure, unadulterated White nationalism (which includes deep anti-Semitism) which has not been seen in a major-party nominee since the 19th century.

To believe that Bernie could’ve won in those circumstances is a fantasy. It’s a form of denial against the very real danger we are facing right now.

Worse than fantasy, fixating on a candidate who has already lost — either Bernie OR Hillary, despite her significant popular vote win — is a dangerous distraction to our current real work of stopping bona fide fascism.

We were not and are not prepared to fight fascism. No Democrat and no mainstream Republican (who, amorally, voted for Trump in the end; he got 90 percent of Repubicans’ votes; they “came home”).

I keep saying how it’s no coincidence modern white nationalism and fascism has risen as the exact time our WWII veterans and survivors have left this world. My last grandparents, who remembered the Depression & WWII vividly, died just 5 years ago. Fucking eerie.

I’ve been fearing the effect of the loss of the WW2 generation for a while. Those guys made some fucked up PTSD fuelled decisions but they were at least responsible and knew the real cost of war.

My grandfather who was just old enough to be drafted in the very last days of the war still remembers the post-war rationing as the worst part of the whole experience. He still blames his small stature on not getting enough to eat during his last few years of high school.

What truly bothers me is that the republicans turned the noise knob up to 11 and now they realize their candidate doesn’t even have to stay on message in the slightest. Facts aren’t even an afterthought in their constituency. And since the electoral college is racially biased…we’re gonna start moving backwards at high speed.

Even worse than being a Jew, Bernie has been speculated to be an atheist. (Mind you, that is from the perspective of the general population, not my perspective – I’m an atheist myself.)

He says he’s not an atheist, but there’s enough uncertainty there that it would be extremely easy for Republicans to push that message and get the religious conservatives fired up against him even more.

Atheism and socialism are at the bottom of the list of traits that the population is willing to accept. A 2015 Gallup poll found that, assuming a qualified candidate, a full 40% of responders would not be willing to vote for an atheist, and 50% would not be willing to vote for a socialist. That’s before you even consider other issues.

So anyone who thinks Bernie had any chance with this double whammy is severely idealistic.

Nobody ever liked Hillary? You mean apart from the 60 million-plus who voted for her? Or the nearly 18 million Democratic primary voters who wanted her as the nominee in 2008?

Her platform was progressive, people are allowed to evolve (please name one politician of her generation who was for gay marriage before, say, 1995), and you have clearly swallowed the GOP’s jizz when it comes to that superpredator line–their trolls fed that crap to left-wing folks on the internet, and far too many credible, earnest, left-wing voters bought it, even though in 5 seconds you could be on YouTube watching a video of the entire speech in which she said that line…

…and you would then realize that she wasn’t talking about black people, she was talking about some urban gang members during the crack epidemic. She wasn’t even talking about all urban gang members, just some of them. To extrapolate from that to some generalized negativity towards African-Americans, you would have to be either (a) high or (b) Karl Rove trying to come up with yet another bullshit reason left-wingers shouldn’t vote for Hillary.

You dumb shit. You got taken by all the ridiculous stupid lies about her, and now you don’t wanna own up to it, so you double-down on blaming / hating her. Go fuck yourself, moron. You don’t know shit about politics and you couldn’t articulate your way out of a wet paper bag. RIM ME

My parents are also bigots who vocally supported Trump and filled my childhood with stories about how bad black people and gay people are.

Right after the election (in which I voted for Hillary Clinton), my father posted a gloating comment on my page about “defeating socialism.” I ignored it, but one of my Facebook friends called him ignorant. I deleted the whole mess.

Shortly after, I got a call from my parents, letting me know that my husband, my kids, and I are not allowed to come to their Florida house after Christmas, which had been our plan. They’ve done things like this to me before, but I doubt I’ll forgive them for pulling this shit on the kids. I think my relationship with my parents is dead. For all their toxicity, that still hurts.

You. Deserve. Better. Repeat that over and over to yourself as many times as it takes for you to believe it. You have a husband and kids of your own to think of and the kind of behavior your parents are exhibiting is manipulative and abusive. You should not be subjected to it, nor should your husband and kids.

My best friend “broke up” with her brother a few days ago over this election bullshit (He lives in Florida and voted for Gary Johnson.) and I’ve been coaching her the same way.

The suppliers of my genetic material sound about as horrible as yours and I stopped talking to one five and a half years ago and the other earlier this year. I always tell people I was raised to be a sexist, racist, transphobic and all-around horrible asshole, but I overcame it. And it sounds like you have, too.

Sorry about that. Unfortunately we don’t get to choose our relatives. Take comfort in the fact you have your husband and kids, which is a lot more than others who have been ostracised by their parents have 🙂

I’m so sorry Kelly. It sounds like they weren’t great parents before, but now they’ve really flipped into extremely awful.

Trumpers have been behaving in frighteningly cult-like ways, and that’s what this sounds like too. Weirdly, winning seems to have made them MORE angry, not less. That is the behavior of a mob engulfed in fascism, and it’s terrifying.

My parents are pretty bad too, but at least my mom voted for Hillary. (My dad is too toxic to even bother asking him.) In fact we slightly bonded over that, but I’m not raising my expectations for our relationship or anything.

You are welcome in this community, and in many, many others, I am sure.

*hugs* I’m so, so, so sorry your parents act like that. It hurts a lot now, I know that, but honestly you’ll be stronger and healthier (mentally, emotionally, and physically) in the long run. Despite the saying, you *can* choose family; you can’t choose relatives and those you happen to share more DNA with than usual. Surround yourself with loving people that are close, and you’ll have a wonderful, loving, supporting family in no time.

And for the love of any gods that might exist, please stay strong and don’t cave in if they start asking to see your children again, even at the holidays. As someone who had to go through that with my grandparents for the first… 19 years of my life, give or take some, because of my mother adhering to outdated ideas of “family” and “we have to do what’s right, even if they don’t do what’s right back,” PLEASE don’t go back to them unless they honestly, genuinely have a change. I’m still working through the mentally abusive shit they put us through (though instead of politics, mine centered more on being female – and thus not as good ever as my male cousin – and the daughter/family of a ~disgraceful divorcee~), and it’s been ten years down the line since I started refusing to see them, family unity be damn’d… :/

🙁 I’m so sorry. Having ignorant, selfish parents is so shitty. I’m lucky that at least my mom has her head on straight, but my dad has disowned me at least 4 times over my 30 years. I was raised by him to be sexist, racist, and hateful. But I’m so glad I never internalized any of it! You should be proud of yourself for knowing better, too. And for setting an example to your children of not putting up with toxic behavior. Self preservation is extremely underrated. I hope that you and your family can still enjoy your Christmas together, anyway. And I hope your kids understand that this has nothing to do with them and everything to do with your parent’s selfishness.

Morally righteous and satisfying though your response may be, Jill Stein voters aren’t the reason Trump got elected. Neither are Johnson voters for that matter. Stein’s supporters were statistically insignificant and I doubt the majority of Johnson voters would have voted Hillary as their second choice candidate.

Sorry, they are one of the reasons. In both Michigan and Wisconsin, Jill Stein got more votes than Hillary lost by. 51,000 Michigan voters picked Stein; Hillary only lost by 12,000 votes in Michigan. Also, I saw polls of Stein and Johnson voters saying that if there were only Clinton and Trump on the ballot, a significant chunk of EACH GROUP would have voted for Clinton–in other words Johnson wasn’t just peeling votes off Trump; he was also getting Clinton voters.

I just want to take a special moment to recognize the beauty of people who, after casting their symbolic vote, are driven into the streets to hold protest signs while crying tears saturated with xanax.

I’m starting to find the protests pretty irritating. It seems like a better use of time would be to start getting involved in activist groups looking to curb the damage of the next four years instead of making a symbolic gesture of resistance.

Ignoring the shitstorm that will surely be the comments on this, and am here to say this instead: You’ve probably got more than enough on your plate, Coke, but I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I could really use a new playlist from you right about now. Just throwing it out there. Playlist or no, can’t wait to hear more about your movement. Much love.

I need a new playlist, a new reading list, a shiny new bottle of bourbon, a massage, a therapy session, a long jog up the East River, and I’m going to yell “fuck your wall” at Trump Tower at least once a week for as long as I live here.

Every single white person knows that they have listened to their family/friends/coworkers say vile racist shit for years. Every white person can think of a time when they let that slide. I know I have. I’ve sat at Thanksgiving dinner and heard my grandma say shit that would make a skinhead blush. And there were children at that table too, watching all of us do nothing Well, no more.

Look at where “oh, don’t worry about Uncle Rick, he’s just an asshole, he’ll be dead soon,” has gotten us. Now people we love and care about are legitimately afraid for their safety. We were all hoping with Hillary that we could go on pretending this kind of thing didn’t happen, and we wouldn’t have to stand up to it. That we were off the hook. Well, guess what turns out we never were. Now we do have to do something.

The next time you hear some awful shit, you need to tell bigots “My presence is not a safe space for your hate. You thought it was; you were wrong. Think about all the others like me who’ve you’ve said shit like that to, who believed you were disgusting after you left the room. We were all placating you, and now you will know it.” Then, suddenly, the bigot’s world gets a little smaller. Do that enough times, and they’ll start to realize that no one can tolerate that kind of shit for the world we want our children to live in. And that will mean more than any distant city protest.

So what I’m saying is: FELLOW WHITE PEOPLE. YOU. HAVE. TO. START. AND/OR. CONTINUE. CONFRONTING. THE. BIGOTS. IN. YOUR. LIFE. A racist won’t listen to people of color. A homophobe won’t listen to LGBT+ folk. We are the ones who have to do it. Start stepping the fuck up right now. It’s the least we can fucking do.

And to our author, the erstwhile Stein supporter: Your PEOTUS and VPEOTUS are full on climate change deniers. Really. They will stack the deck full of people who will chip away at anything Stein could have supported. DAPL? As good as approved. Paris Accord. Gone, honey. They’re bringing back Keystone XL, for fuck’s sakes. I hope your grandchildren thank you for standing so firmly on your principles as they battle droughts and hurricanes coming up the Eastern seabord to Newfoundland.

Trump appointed Myron Ebell, a “climate skeptic”, to head his EPA transition team. Appointing someone who rejects climate change to head your environmental team is a very strong signal for what a Trump administration will look like.

ETA: Trump is a gross anti-intellectual bullying asshole but he’s also incompetent and impressionable and DESPERATE FOR VALIDATION. That means his puppeteers (the ones who actually have Ideas and are serious fascist types) are the true threat.

There was a not-insignificant amount of Trump supporters from the alt right who used to crow about “FEELINGS AREN’T FACTS!” and use science as a cudgel against people of faith, “NO MAGIC SKY FAIRIES HERE!” And then they elected a VPEOTUS who literally doesn’t believe in evolution and thinks the Earth is 6000 years old.

Kind of funny; and by funny I mean “makes me want to weep until I vomit and vomit until I die.”

But yes, a general echo: As long as we’re stuck with the rural-ocracy that is the Electoral College, persuading and organizing for Dems in rural and/or white areas in swing & red states is on us whites. If one’s own family is too toxic to persuade, you can provide practical, financial or at least moral support to grassroots Dems (statehouse, local, US House) in swing and red states. (Forget about the presidency for now … barring a miracle from “unfaithful electors,” it’s about state government and Congress for the next 2 years.)

The reason it’s on liberal whites is so simple: In a lot of these places, organizing and outreach is physically risky for black people and other racial minorities, and it’s probably gonna be even worse post-Trump.

Ugh. Yes. And don’t even get me started on the motherfuckers who are glad Trump won because they think if it REALLY gets worse, people will rise up and there will be a revolution. But not this “incremental progress” pussy bullshit.

A REAL revolution. You know, the kind that makes their dicks hard.

They are almost always straight white dudes.

How very brave of them to sacrifice thei- er, I mean, minorities’ well-being in the name of The Revolution.

Good luck getting any Muslims, POC, LGBT+ people and women to march with you backstabbing assholes. They’ll all be too busy trying to stay the fuck alive, healthy and functional in this incoming hellscape you’ve voted them into. Or not voted, as it were.

In any case, fuck all the way off, get your head out of your ass, start fucking LISTENING for a change, then get *off* your ass and then maybe you’ll be forgiven.

Yeah, that ideology is called “accellerationism” and it’s a hackneyed idea from Marxism. It is literally a Bolshevik ideology: “the worse, the better.” It yielded Stalin. Can’t believe this idea has adherents in the 21st Century.

You are dead right that it’s an irrational form of machismo rather than a legit program of change. It’s a Che Guevara t-shirt, not a plan.

In 100-plus years, Marxism has literally accomplished next-to-nothing in America except a presidential assassination and a few cushy academic jobs for its more bougie adherents. By contrast, the Civil Rights movement (and its offspring, women’s liberation and gay liberation) has accomplished quite a bit. But the masculinist, so-called “alt left” wants to put those folks’ concerns in 2nd place and run a fantasy cosplay class-based “revolution” centering white men who love Fight Club. Or, in the case of the older guys, their fantasy is a 1930s/1940s WPA mural come to life … with Jim Crow and Japanese-American internment camps just out of the frame.

The more fact-based and sanity-based model of political change in modern democracy is the Overton Window. I pray we still have a modern democracy in which to apply it.

I can see how as an outside observer a person might be interested in seeing what happens when things are pushed far enough to the edge of a cliff. The Russian Revolution was a spontaneous conflagration that came about as a result of things getting infinitely worse for people to the point that the alternative to revolt was death. I can see how someone might want to see what happens from a macro-historical perspective, but who the fuck would ever wish that on their own country or time period??

Was the Civil Rights Movement, though, not grounded in Marxist thought? The Black Panthers and even MLK himself recognized the economic disenfranchisement/ labor exploitation that racism (and other forms of oppression) springs from. Not trying to jump to the defense of Marxism, this is a legitimate question from a college student rethinking her politics for the first time.

The Black Panthers just bought a bunch of Mao’s red books and resold them to stupid Berkeley kids in order to fund their movement. They were legitimate dissidents but I don’t think they gave a fuck about marxism beyond using the language for leverage.

Civil Rights Movement was more grounded in liberal Christianity than any other ideology. 2nd ideology would have been Enlightenment ideas about value of individual freedom and equality. I don’t mean to be flippant, but they didn’t need Marx to know about poverty and to see the economic situation clearly.

Historically, CR movement hasn’t been about economics as the prime motivator, it was primarily about civil rights. Still is today: A belief black people and other minorities and women will prosper economically within capitalism as discrimination is removed. It’s accepted that some economic hierarchy will persist; but in the real world, that’s true in socialist states as well, so not necessarily better. CR has been pro-organized labor (e.g. janitors strike) IF the unions weren’t racist — and back in the 1950s & 60s & 70s, racism was very common among the membership of the more prosperous unions like steelworkes, autoworkers, building trades, etc. It’s not gone even from the traditional male-dominated unions today — the service workers unions are better at being anti-racist. (Plus in the 1960s, some powerful unions really did have organized crime infiltration.)

Only a fringe of the Civil Rights movement has ever rejected capitalism per se. E.g., Malcolm X strongly believed in black economic self-reliance via successful business, aka moneymaking! Of course, most people in yesterday’s and today’s civil right’s movements aren’t laissez faire capitalists, either, or Milton Friedman free-markets ideologues. In practice, most want a mixed system that builds on FDR/LBJ/WJC progress, a social safety net and anti-discrimination laws, plus economic and educational opportunity. Hence the platform of the Democratic party, more or less, basically since FDR w/ Civil Rights added in the 1960s. Most are against revolution, because vulnerable members of society are most likely to be the eggs broken to make the omelette, so to speak.

As for the Panthers specifically, socialist ideology and aesthetics were definitely afoot in all movements at that time period, but the membership’s main motivation was self-defense/self-assertion/self-help of their group, not actual Marxist revolution. Tho radical chic provided a glamorous aesthetic! As you probably know, aside from their self-defense stuff, the Panthers did some cool programs, like the free breakfast program, which is now mainstreamed w/ the federal school lunch program. (For now …)

Marx & Weber were hugely influential as theory for good reasons, but can’t be overapplied in real world USA social change movements. Marxist THEORY has always been enjoyed by the educated elite of social movements, but what’s been successful in practice has been incremental change.

The above commentary doesn’t get into Leninism, tho, which is distinct and more dangerous as compared to the manifesto of a bushy-bearded German intellectual. Marx described & theorized phases of history as an evolutionary trajectory. Accepting that theoretical model for the sake of argument, the actual Leninist revolutionaries wanted to rush them along, to go from feudalism to socialism in one violent convulsion. A.k.a. accellerationism — “the worse, the better.” In the real world, that hurts vulnerable people the most.

It’s a vast, vast topic, and one I’ve been contemplating since college myself; just some thoughts in response to your question.

I would like to split a hair here. To a point, the Steiner and the Bernie bros are the same. But I think the Bernie bros win the title of “the worst” because they were more likely to vote trump or Stein and their temper tantrum politics are way more abhorrent than people who really just believe Steins nutball worldview that lands on some right answers for the wrong reasons.

So yeah, Bernie bros get that particular golden douche trophy.

And to the OP we feel your pain, your penance is to convince someone else like you to never let it happen again. There is no such thing as a “symbolic” vote.

Would you also like to bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles so we could all eat it and be happy?

“Sharing our opinions and debating without all the name calling and hate” is what we’ve been trying to do for 16 fucking months and these assholes didn’t listen. So we’re fucking angry. Let us be angry.

Sure. Be angry. But realize that anger is not being harnessed for any real progress. No real communication is happening in our tirades. I know this and I’m guilty of some of the most ridiculously lengthy diatribes here. I did it for entertainment purposes; my own selfish entertainment.

I doubt anyone in the history of the world has changed their mind because someone said, “You’re an idiot.”

The only time we ever really make progress is when we stop using labels and ask questions. Like, “What do you want to happen now?”

Yeah, people acclimate to both the positive and the negative really quickly. It’s good for humanity on the whole, but the real challenge will be keeping people engaged as the next four years, not calming them down.

I don’t care about “changing minds”. I want idiots to know that they’re idiots. I want racists shamed. If they’re too stupid to understand why they’re wrong, I’m going to at least be sure they know they are wrong.

11/11 Bill Maher panelist: “this is the racist icing on the fuck you cake that they baked for you” can’t get it out of my head, such a powerful analogy. They probably felt like they’d been getting fuck you cake for the past bunch of years but most everyone thought the cake was insincere and it had just become the popular opinion that other people should get cake too when some of these folks were like, “hey! that was my cake, why do I have to share labor and commerce with those people over there? why did that person get the edge slice with frosting? I always got whatever slice I wanted. What the fuck is this cake made out of now anyway? It tastes like grains and honey and cream instead of the delectably fluffy squares of chemicals from the factory. In my day the cake was made with real aerosol and it was really good cake, ok? Now, this cake? It’s not so good. Why should we bake cakes over there when we can bake all the cake right here? My new brand of cake mix, FuhQ *with Reicist frosting pouch included, brought to you here from over there, will allow you to eat fluffy chemical cake baked in your very own oven everyday! That’s right folks! We’re bringing cake back and it’s going to be way better, and if it sucks? At least you don’t have to share.”

That was a hard Bill Maher to watch and I think I might be done. He thinks he’s so progressive, but he can’t see his own privilege when its staring him in the face. The part where that one woman stood up to him and said … so you think this election was lost because its not enough about white men? Ack Ack. Bill. You are so gross.

Just FYI – people are saying “not my president” not because we don’t recognize trump as having been fairly elected, but because trump made it pretty clear that he doesn’t represent women, poc, LBGT, muslims (on and on). I can’t recognize a leader that doesn’t recognize me as a consituent.

Every vote (or lack thereof) that wasn’t for Hillary litteraly won Trump the election.
Voting third party, refusing to vote or voting for Harambe are litteraly all on the same level in the end. Realize that.

Sweetheart, what did you think was going to happen? This question is for you and all the maddening Stein supporters in my timeline who are yanking their hair out in fear and hysteria over the Trump win: what was, for you, the logical end to mobilizing and demonstrating support for a third party candidate? Because surely you recognize that any, absolutely any hope that the result would be the ascension of anyone other than Trump or Hillary to the presidency is nothing short of ABSOLUTE DELUSION.

Did you think this through? Did you not see this as a possibility? This is why CQ calls you children. Because if you had taken the time to be cognizant and realistic, you would have seen this as a possibility.

I don’t think it’s “your fault” because so many factors contributed to his win, a few I think are more concerning than the third party voters. But now we’re all putting in the work of preventing as much misery to minorities, immigrants, LGBT, people of other nations and all those who will be impacted by this megalomaniac being one of the most powerful men in the free world, and I want you to think about this: What. In the fuck. Did you think. Would happen.

Here’s one for the people holding out hope. I’m so mad about this maggot ridden cake that got delivered on my doorstep, I wanted Gateau Basque!, but they’ve got my fucking credit card information, are going to charge me for it, and in all likelihood when I call to reverse it I’ll get bounced around in a fucking phone maze and disconnected, but damn it’d be nice if they don’t make me pay for this bullshit cake that would kill me with parasites.http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G16/EC-Electors.phtml

All this righteousness and vindication should be have been voiced on twitter, 4chan and your everyday YouTube comment section at the actual voices of hate over the past few years, instead of trying to persecute an idealist for actually having the courage of their convictions. Basically, this person is expressing contrition over idealism and overestimating the decency of their countrymen and this comment section be like, “YEAH FUCK YOU FOR BELIEVING IN US.”

I’m so glad you took a break from tugging on your tiny little chafed dick to join us. This idiot didn’t overestimate the decency of her countrymen. She made a childish choice to spite Hillary voters while expecting Hillary voters to protect her and her rights.

And are you seriously suggesting that not commenting on Youtube videos enough cost Hillary the presidency? Please shoot yourself and put yourself out of the misery of being inside your convoluted head.

How would you feel if it turned out that an enormous number of bots were posting on social media so no matter how much of a cry someone tried to raise they’d just get drowned out by the bots? Or they could just be trolls with inhumane focus on winning the internet. Either way. Maybe the takeaway isn’t that we should have used social media more effectively but that we shouldn’t be relying on it to paint pictures of public opinion. Can we science the fuck out of this? Could we develop a platform that tracked public opinions with no bias and higher accuracy than existing methodology to change the landscape?

If you think idealism is not ridiculous in such a practical, every-scale thing as a presidential election, the worst thing that ever happened to you in life was probably breaking your arm while playing lacrosse and having a cast for a month.

I think you guys are going to be really embarrassed of this vitriolic attitude ten years from now.

Trump beat almost every poll, and do you know why? It wasn’t just toothless Christian Walmart shoppers in Kansas. People you personally know (and like, and hang out with, and generally agree with) voted for Trump, without telling you. Because they didn’t want to be subject to a diatribe from a bourgeois leftist shaming them for their complicity in systemic racism when all they wanted was to vote for the person who they didn’t feel was flagrantly lying to their faces.

I work for a small business, and part of my job is to handle a fair share of the customer support. When we make a mistake, people are mostly understanding – unless the item they bought was for a gift. It’s really all the justification some people need to throw dehumanizing attacks at whatever company rep they’re talking to.

Being woke is no justification to verbally pummel your fellow human beings (especially exactly the people you’ll need to resist Trump and the GOP). The fight against inequality does not give you a moral imperative to shame people who voted differently – and what sense does that make, to hurl abuse at people on the left who have all the exact same goals as you do, because they prioritized them differently?

To the OP, I want you to know that I hard disagree with Coquette on this. You are not the worst. You have fucked up though, especially if you live in a swing state. And your fuckup will probably hurt others more than it will ever affect you. If you believed in your own political power enough to vote Stein, and you really do feel you’ve made a huge mistake, you have a responsibility to push back against the inevitable shitstorm of Trump’s presidency. Tell your friends your new thinking. Throw a little money at local candidates. Disagree with people in public who downplay the disaster Trump will be (but don’t be a jerk about it – not because the person is owed courtesy but because the anti-Trump movement deserves admirable and persuasive voices). Read the news. Do things because they’ll have the best impact and not because they’ll give you the best feeling (sometimes the two are actually in conflict).

Your parents are wrong, the country’s culture IS broken and racist and sexist in a way that poisons literally everything, and you can make your own one-human-sized change to that with thoughtful, deliberate action. And you should probably start now, because in about 70 days shit is going to get very real for a lot of people, and when it happens it’s going to be very easy for a lot of other people to just…ignore it.

It’s probably not true that people we know voted Trump while being scared to admit it. Fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Romney. It’s more likely that people who claimed they were going to vote for Clinton simply didn’t vote, for whatever reason.

Here in the Midwest we call them lean-ins. The whispered “I voted for Trump” as they lean into you. The people who voted Democrat all their lives flipped this election and voted big-ass Republican, and I would love to see your source for the “more votes for Romney” because I’m not buying it.

FWIW, the lean-ins I know voted for the DT because they really and truly did not trust HC, and they still remember BC and that combo platter just wasn’t working for them.

Personally I’m a moderate and often split my ticket based on the issues. I didn’t like either candidate and went with the one I thought would preserve the status quo, much as CQ advised.

I did GOTV phone calls. It was a list of Democrats so of course most were Hillary voters. But not all. I am VERY certain that a few who claimed to be “undecided” were not undecided at all, they were Trump voters who wouldn’t admit it.

Obviously that’s anecdotal but at least a few secret Trumpers are out there, I think. And with razor thin margins in several swing states, it may have only taken a few, statistically speaking.

“I think you guys are going to be really embarrassed of this vitriolic attitude ten years from now.”

NO FUCKING WAY.

“The fight against inequality does not give you a moral imperative to shame people who voted differently”

YES, YES IT DOES. Because that’s the entire reason this happens. Those people didn’t just “vote differently.” They voted to support and enable people who are monumentally, catastrophically lacking in intelligence, integrity, and a desire to represent all people.

There are people who think it’s okay to sling racist slurs in public and threaten to burn hijabs while women are still wearing them. All of those people need to be shamed until they learn. It didn’t need to be loud message until they turned it into a fight. And that’s exactly what trump did. He made this a desperate fight for life instead of a negotiation of differences. And he did it by manipulating the people who are least qualified to vote on rights that represent what is literally the majority of our nation.

The white, tyranny of the few, must end. This is not hyperbole that would be regretted in hindsight.

“All of those people need to be shamed until they learn.” This attitude is why 47.23% of the county took time out of their day to cast a spite vote. To release the narcissistic, bloviating Kraken. As long as we have the secret ballot, being the side that caricaturizes and dehumanizes huge demographics will not work. Socially-conscious liberals need to take a hard look at how they’ve been crafting their message, because this groundswell of resentment isn’t going away in the next four years.

I am making a purely practical argument here: if empowering the disadvantaged is important to you, delivering your argument in a way that is persuasive to others should be equally important to you. And the more important the issue, the more urgent it is you figure out how to reach people. Unless you’re planning armed revolt, arguments cannot be won by force alone.

Racism/sexism isn’t why Hillary lost, it was because she’s a thoroughly establishment candidate in an anti-establishment election year!

But wait, it wasn’t because she’s establishment, it was because she’s part of the liberal elite that rural folk hate!

It wasn’t because she’s liberal elite, it’s because lazy white liberals didn’t do enough to convince their friends and family to vote against trump!

It isn’t because white folk didn’t make an effort, it’s because conservative Amerika is unreachable!

It’s not because they’re unreachable, it’s because liberals have been overly tolerant of people who will never tolerate them!

It’s not because they’ve been overly tolerant, it’s because everyone refuses to have a real discussion!

It’s not because people refuse to have good ol’ fashion discussions, it’s because you can’t, liberals make you feel bad for having opinions!

It’s not because liberals make people feel bad for having opinions, it’s because amerika is racist/sexist!

It’s not because of racism/sexism, it’s because she’s an establishment candidate…

Fucking christ.
I fucking hate everyone. Y’all can’t stop infighting about every single fucking possible thing. Oh yea, we all gotta blame someone. Gotta be the bernie bro or the stein supporter or the person who voted hillary in the primaries or the hillary voter with trump supporting family members or hillary herself or bernie himself, and you know what, they gotta take ALL the blame. Yep, let’s each pick ONE group to blame, and layer it on thick. You get bonus points if the group you’re blaming shares your values.

This is the same problem I saw at a bar I used to work at. The managers set up a toxic and competitive work environment, they treated their employees like shit, and all that ever happened to them is they would get their dicks sucked by the new servers. It was a constant high-stress environment with no respect for our time, and people got frustrated. Where did that frustration go? To each other. We’d talk shit about the boss and the customers, but you know who took the brunt of the catty toxic shit? Fellow employees. So they’d complain and complain and nothing would change. They’d talk about quitting and never leave. It’s like they all existed just to make each other miserable. I fucking hated that place with a burning passion. Every time I see this shit that liberals do, this flippantly engaged infighting, I think of that place.

What the fuck are you talking about? This is America’s elected office, not a shitty bar job where the staff engage in petty power struggles to assuage boredom and the only consequence is a few people’s workplace misery. This isn’t fucking Mean Girls. People’s lives are at stake. But the environment is too “high stress” for you? Imagine the stress Muslims, Latinos, and queer people in your country are feeling right now.

There absolutely is blame to lay here. People are to blame for this, and I’m sure as shit gonna say that to their face.

I’m talking about how yelling at each other because you’re in a shit environment only makes the environment more shit, and y’all are helping me demonstrate my point. It feels like you’re doing something useful, but all you’re doing is easing your stress at the expense of others. Notice how the tone of my original post informs the tone of the following posts.

Sure is, but there’s a lot more work to do than blame to lay. Y’all sound like chickens, running around with their heads cut off, trying to catch the butcher. I still haven’t seen a single cohesive post-election strategy put out by anyone. Fragments are certainly forming, but I constantly see those conversations submerged in this bullshit. People are too focused on making sure other people feel bad. It’s inane.

By the way, high-stress work environment wasn’t a complaint. That’s just the nature of a lot of service industry work, which I’m actually quite in love with. The environment is neither too stressful nor too toxic for me, that’s not the argument. The argument is that people are being destructive with each other here and that contributes heavily to the stress and toxicity of the environment as a whole. I’m not saying don’t call people out. I’m saying stop making everyone you call out the motherfucking devil. Be careful with each other so you can be dangerous together.

What the goddamn fuck are you even trying to say? Your point is indecipherable. Basically you’re trying to tone-police the response to a septuagenarian sexual predator being elected President? Don’t waste your time.

I don’t give a shit about the feelings of third party voters. Let them feel bad. “Be careful” with them? They’re not entitled to my fucking care anymore. As Coke said, they knew better. They’re the ones who betrayed the people who face harm from a Trump administration.

And the fact that you haven’t seen a “post-election strategy” only means that you haven’t been looking for one. It hasn’t even been a week. You’ll catch up.

while i think it is true that a lot of people didn’t vote, it’s important to critically examine your sources, particularly when they involve statistics. that graph is purposefully misleading – the y-axis starts at 52,000,000.

Looks like Paul Ryan is phasing out Medicare. I’ll bet my Trump lovin’ parents and in-laws will just LOVE that. Because if there is anything the over 65 crowd loves it’s change that messes with their health care.

Fuck everyone blasting an entire generation of people as if they’re the ones who should bear the brunt of this.

If you’re going to say that Millennials as a group are spoiled – which I don’t agree with in the first place – who do you think would be to blame for spoiling them? Their parents, of course! Who would be GenXers and some of the younger Boomers.

And before you start getting onto me because I’m some defensive Millennial, I’m not. I’m GenX.

I meant politically spoiled. Anyone who threw away their vote on a third party candidate did so because they didn’t see Trump as a legit threat. They’ve taken the past 8 years for granted and basically wiped they’re ass with any progressive change Obama accomplished. I can only rationalize this by saying they must either have severe dementia or are just too young to recall anything other than the current administration. It’s a potentially very dangerous mindset and is definitely history repeating itself. You remember Gore/Bush?? I do. I voted for Gore. But many of my contemporaries voted for Nader for the same reasons people voted third party in this election. As a result Gore lost and we got 8 years of Bush, two wars, a proposal to amend the constitution to define marriage as between a man and woman, and increased regulation on reproductive rights, Cheif Justice Roberts, … etc.
You voted Stein? You voted Johnson? You lost this election for Hillary and elected DONALD TRUMP as our next President and shit on any progress we made in the last 8 years. So, yes, you can straight fuck off. Grow up. Thanks for ruining EVERYTHING.

Yeah, you should have known better. You’re not the worst though. You fucked up. But so did all of us. We didn’t see this coming. We need to stop blaming each other, and those that want to work together with us. You have no idea how much I appreciate hearing that a Jill Stein voted regrets their decision. It gives me hope. It means that people are capable of learning and changing their minds. Change. That’s the only thing that will get us out of this clusterfuck.

I get that you’re angry Coke, but we don’t have the luxury to hold grudges. I’ll take anyone on our side that we can get. And honestly, growing up with white nationalists is no easy feat. It doesn’t justify voting for Stein. But trust me, I have room in my heart to forgive the protest voters who’ve changed their minds far more than the ones who are holding onto the idea that they’re in the right.

This is just a Canadian throwing in my two loonies, but how can you say that someone who votes for what they believe in is the worst? Let me ask you, if someone had the opportunity to kill their assassin, but refused to based on their belief of non-violence, would you consider that to be cowardly and terrible?

I think it’s sad that America, the champion of Democracy, threw up two people that the majority disliked. I think it’s a shame on democracy that Americans had to choose between the lesser of two evils, instead of the greatest of the good.

If someone stood up to that, and chose a candidate that they felt supported their best interests, instead of voting for Hillary out of fear Trump would win, or vice versa, then they are, in my opinion, the courageous. They have the true democratic heart. That person has the same bravery as the man who refuses to kill his assassin. He dies knowing that his ideal lived.

Casting a responsible vote in a Presidential election calls for the individual to put personal feelings aside. It’s not just about YOU it’s about US. One should never (when voting for President) put individual needs above the needs of the community. You can tailor your locale and state officials more to your personal liking. But when it comes to federal presidential elections a responsible citizen will vote to protect democracy not to “express their authentic selves”. This is the spoiled mentality that I talk about in my comment above.
Sit down.

Yes but I am saying that when a society has to pick between the lesser of two evils, the spirit of democracy is dead. Democracy is intended to allow the people to have a say in how their government runs things. If your choices are someone you deplore (Trump), and someone who will oppose him (Clinton), then you aren’t really getting much of a say.

That system is like offering me chocolate or vanilla ice-cream, but I’m lactose intolerent. No matter which one I choose, or if I don’t choose at all, they will force-feed me ice-cream and I’m gonna get the shits. Better to go down kicking and screaming for pumpkin pie.

Pay attention OP and all other regretful voters, this is the expected response for not towing the line. Idk what the fuck her parents are, but trump voters aren’t white nationalists, they’re unsophisticated folk that are tired of the screeching, autistic cry-bullying from the left for not conforming to the Universal Truth

For fuck sake, leftists will be leftists.
It’s not as if the Jill Stein vote would of changed much with your fucking electoral college bullcrap.
Shaming gregarious minds into engaging in collective enterprises obviously doesn’t work outside a progressive echo chamber, so what do we do now?